“Okay then.” I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. “He needs us behind him, one hundred percent.”
The lobby went silent again except for the dull murmur coming from the deputy on the phone. I unbuttoned my coat as my frustration with Hazel and Thea warmed my insides.
How could they think he was guilty? How dare they? Shame on them for doubting him. Even if it was just for a moment, it still made me angry.
I wished Mom were still here. She wouldn’t have contemplated the worst. Or would she? Had she already considered that he could be guilty too? Was I being na?ve to not at least consider all of the alternatives here?
Sheriff Magee was good at his job. He wouldn’t have arrested Jackson if there weren’t a reason. Which meant Jackson was a suspect because there had to be some sort of evidence against him.
But what? It had been two months since his mother had come to Lark Cove. He hadn’t seen her since the day she’d abandoned Ryder.
Right?
Had he seen Melissa again and hidden it from me? We’d been in such a good place these past couple of weeks. The two of us had become closer than ever and we talked about everything. We confided in one another. We trusted each other.
At least, I thought we did. So if he had been in contact with Melissa, why hadn’t he told me about it?
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered.
“What was that?” Logan asked.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I repeated, louder. “She left Lark Cove months ago.” I looked at Thea and Hazel. “Did he say anything about her coming back?”
Hazel shook her head. “Not to me.”
“Me either,” Thea said. “As far as I know, he hasn’t seen her since she left town after dropping off Ryder.”
Unless he was being framed, that meant he’d hid something from all of us.
He’d lied to me. A lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless.
The questions began to roll through my mind, an endless string with nothing but a question mark to separate them. When had this happened? How had she died? When had Jackson found the time to see her?
I’d been with him almost constantly these past few days. The only time we’d been apart was when he’d been at the bar working and I’d been at his house tutoring Ryder. So when? When could he have possibly seen his mother again?
There was no way he could have killed her. The entire thing made no sense. I couldn’t picture Jackson hurting someone, no matter who they were. He rarely lost his temper. When he was upset, he didn’t lash out. He shut down.
Except that wasn’t exactly true.
The night he’d thought I was flirting with that guy at the bar, he’d lashed out. He’d shattered those beer bottles so hard in the trash can I’d nearly startled off my stool. And he’d been so angry that night, saying such hurtful things. I hadn’t seen him like that before or since.
Maybe his mother had come back while he’d been drunk. He’d blacked out the night he’d kissed me this summer. Maybe he’d been drunk when his mother had come back to town and he hadn’t told me because he didn’t remember.
But when? When had he been drunk? The only night that came to mind was weeks ago when he’d left in the middle of the night and come home smelling like booze.
I closed my eyes as my stomach churned.
Oh, no. Jackson, what did you do?
That phone call, the one he’d told me was a wrong number, had to have been from his mother. It was the only explanation.
I ticked the days off on my fingers, counting backward. That call had come before Thanksgiving, in the middle of November. It had been almost three weeks ago.
Three weeks and it was all starting to make more sense.
He’d been acting distant. He’d been short and snappish. He’d tried to break us apart. Was it all because his mother had come back to Lark Cove?
None of it made any sense. Jackson wasn’t a murderer. He was sweet and loving and kind. He wouldn’t do this to me and he especially wouldn’t do this to Ryder. Something wasn’t adding up.
If I could just talk to Jackson, we’d figure this out.
I stood from my seat and went to the front desk, giving the deputy a slight wave as I approached.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t have an update for you.”
“That’s okay.” I looked beyond him. The counter that separated us ran the length of the small lobby, effectively creating a barrier to the rest of the building. You couldn’t get into the station unless he unlocked the door to my side.
I stared at the door longingly, wanting to go through it and search for Jackson. My attention snapped back to the deputy just as Porter and Sheriff Magee came from the doorway at his back.
My eyes went to Porter’s first, hoping to see something promising in his face. But he didn’t spare me a glance as he handed a file folder to the front desk deputy.
“Hi, Willa.” Sheriff Magee extended his hand over the counter.
I gave him a small smile. “Hi, Sheriff Magee.”
It had been a while since I’d seen the sheriff. I’d run into him at the grocery store a year back in the beer and wine section. He had teased me about not being old enough to buy alcohol. He hadn’t been able to believe I was the same little girl who’d he’d once helped up after a bike crash in front of his house.
I’d grown up. Sheriff Magee had changed a lot too since then.
His black hair, which was normally pulled back into a ponytail and covered with a Stetson, had grayed substantially. The lines on his tanned face were deep. Even his stout frame seemed to have lost some of its bulky mass.
But he still had the same warm smile I remembered, an older version of Dakota’s, his nephew and the bar’s new bartender.
They had the same eyes, nearly black, with high cheekbones and a strong chin.
“Can I see Jackson?” I asked him.
He sighed. “I’m sorry. Not yet. We need to ask you a few questions.”
My heart sank. “Okay.”
“Sheriff.” Logan appeared at my side, holding his hand out.
“Logan. Thea.” He nodded to them both. “Hi, Hazel.”
“Xavier,” she grumbled.
No one ever called the sheriff anything other than Magee. He went by either Magee or Sheriff Magee. Not even my father used Xavier and he’d known Sheriff Magee for decades. Why did it not surprise me that Hazel, of all people, called him by his first name?
“Where’s my boy?” she asked him.
“We’re asking him some questions.”
“Are you about done? We’ve been here all damn day.”
He frowned. “I need to talk with Willa. And I might have some questions for you too.”
“Fine.” She narrowed her eyes, sending him a glare that would have made me cry.
“Can I do that?” he asked. “Or did you want me to stand here so you can glare at me a little while longer?”
She dismissed him with a flick of her wrist. “Get on with it.”
I looked back and forth between them, wondering what the deal was with these two. Everyone liked Sheriff Magee. Everyone. He’d won his last election in a landslide. And everyone liked Hazel. So how did these two not like one another?
Now wasn’t the time to ask.
“Willa, come on back.”
“Okay.” I nodded and took a step toward the door but stopped when Logan touched my shoulder.
“I think you should wait until the lawyer gets here,” he said quietly.
“That’s still at least an hour away, and it’s already three o’clock.” I turned to Sheriff Magee, a man who I trusted to give me sound advice. “Should I wait for a lawyer?”
“That’s your call and you have the right to wait. But I don’t think you need one for this. I just have a couple easy questions.”
“Then I’ll come back now.” If answering some simple questions meant that Jackson might not have to spend the night in a jail cell, I’d cooperate.
Logan frowned. “Willa—”
“It’s okay. If I get uncomfortable, I can always stop talking and wait for the lawyer.”
The door buzzed and the lock popped, so before Logan could stop me again, I opened it up and went inside.